Wow! Beautiful GQ cover! Congratulations on being first Donna. And a great big thank you to BWD for re-opening The Only Adult in the Room. Now we will have two great sources to make us smarter and carry us through the battle ahead. Hurray for us! Go Chipsticks and BWD!

The Obama campaign is launching a multi-pronged, multimedia attack on Mitt Romney’s record as a private equity buyout specialist.

A two-minute ad, entitled “Steel,” will air in Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Virginia. A longer version of the ad is available at RomneyEconomics.com — a website that examines Romney’s record in detail.

The thrust of the attack examines Romney’s record at Bain Capital and tells story of GST Steel — a company whose Kansas City plant was shuttered after Bain purchased it in 1993.

“Bain Capital walked away with a lot of money that they made off of this plant. We view Mitt Romney as a job destroyer,” one of the plant workers say in the ad.

Describing the website RomneyEconomics.com, the campaign said: “In a career of buying and selling companies, Romney’s pattern was to reap quick profits for himself and his investors at the expense of workers and communities. Sometimes it meant sending American jobs overseas. Other times, it meant cutting wages and benefits. In Romney’s economic philosophy, CEOs and wealthy investors prosper by any means necessary, even when it meant companies failed and workers were left behind. Romney believes in two sets of rules – one for people like him, another for everyone else.”

The attacks on Romney’s private equity record also surfaced not only in the winter Republican primary, but also in Mitt Romney’s 1994 senate race against the late Ted Kennedy. Kennedy produced a series of ads, including some that never aired, accusing Romney of layoffs and destroying jobs.

Everybody, please tweet the steel worker ad and put it on FB. It doesn’t matter what Republican twits say, it’s powerful ad and it touches people where they live. It’s heartbreaking to see a community fall apart and it’s devastating to lose everything you worked for over the course of a lifetime. People get this. And they get that Romney doesn’t give a damn. When he tries to fake sincerity or pretends he cares about jobs, he comes across as a phoney–a really bad actor. Make this ad go viral on You Tube, get it out to everyone you know. Romney the destroyer– that’s who the R’s are running for president.

Good morning, TOD family – These ads are very powerful and cut right through the Republican claim of being in a better position to grow the economy. People will understand that the “growth” is only in the profits for the likes of Mitt Romney and at the expense of hard working Americans. Anyone on Twitter – please help to make these ads go viral.

Hope everyone had a great mothers day. I was at the store yesterday and a lady had a birthday card in here hand for her sister. I said, “I love your card”. The cover was a picture of PBO with his big smile. She said, “wow”, I agree with you but I am giving this to my conservative sister as a joke. We had a lengthy conversation and I recruited a new volunteer. She just moved here from California. She is set to get her ID and voter registration card. We traded phone numbers and I am going to introduce her to the OFA office not far from my house,

I had a conversation with Dems who were tepid supporters of PBO and are now very much in his corner. I think a lot of the whining is going to dissipate as we face an election with such stark choices. No one can stand Romney. They see right through his BS.

Good for you, proud. We have to take advantage of every opportunity we get to register voters and get volunteers. If it would turn Florida blue, I’d hope for a huge influx of Californians to Florida between now and November.

Good morning, TODville!! My sincere gratitude for all the very sweet birthday wishes!! I had a really marvelous day. And I hope all moms out there also had a super special day with family and friends. xoxo

I love those ads -and it changes the silly MSM focus on Black voters and SSM to something far more relevant and consequential. You know that they’re effective when Moanin’ Joke is throwing tantrums on his show.

These ads might be the Campaigns best.
We shall see if the MSM picks it up and If MSNBC sti rubs a disclaimer about Bain.
I am also very disappointed in Ratner, who apparently has a Bromance for Robney. Sigh!

I just posted on twitter and will post on FB when I get home from work. I forwarded the truth team e-mail to the 200 plus members on my team, and then to a huge list from my personal e-mail. It is now the time to move out of our comfort zones and speak out more. This commercial is filled with facts. Smart people use facts to make up their minds. I sent it to my smart friends.

These ads shows the real Mitt Romney. The man who don’t give a dam about the little man, people he think is beneath the great Mitt Romney. Just like the teenager who held that guy down and cut his hair, people that is beneath him he can do whatever he want to them. That’s Mitt Romney. Remember, I like being able to fire people.

Morose Joe is mad and upset because Team Obama is doing some scorched earth shit on the entire GOP. President Obama came up through the Chicago machine, people; you don’t go through that machine without knowing how to give a motherfucka a dirt-nap. It seems as though Team Obama continues to launch fresh attacks on Romney when he least expects it.

Robney, thinks he can travel around the country standing in front of closed plants and thinks the Democratic Party will take the abuse. President Barack Obama has shown his Leo spirit, he ain’t nobody to be messed with. Boom…….

Please God let them put out the next add that tells Americans how these vulture capitalist make us pick up the tab for the pensions…and how people lose all the value of their promised/earned pension when the vultures win…

I must admit that I braced myself for this past weekend. I had D-I-L’s law school graduation and then a celebration party at my home with mostly her family that flew in from Kansas and some of her college and personal friends. Then we had a Mother’s Day celebration for all of the Mothers in our family at my cousins home yesterday. Well I knew the topic of the week would come up so I braced for the worse but was ready to defend PBO at all cost.

The first instance was Saturday. My D-I-L’s grandfather made the comment that he wasn’t happy about The President’s SSM statement. Now mind you he is a deacon in his Baptist Church. So I knew I would need to handle this one with kit gloves. He said he agreed with civil unions but that his interpretation of the bible says marriage is between a man and a woman. Ok I had expected this. What I didn’t expect was his follow up statement. Mr. B said, “I don’t like it but hey the world is changing and we have to get him re-elected so it won’t keep me or anyone I know from voting for him this year.” If you all knew how religious Mr. B is you would be saying…WOW!

Then yesterday at my families event, let me preface this by saying that I come from a very deeply religious family. Most of us are traditional Catholics but all of us worship at some form of Christian faith. I looked at my cousin and whispered here we go when I heard the youth of our family having a discussion in the family room with the elders. The cousins in my generation decided we had better go in to support both sides and to not let things get out of hand. To our surprise the elders were very attentive to what the youth had to say. My son shared with them that 10 years ago that he, his brother, his father and I had a discussion and that I had “schooled them” on homosexuals having the right the be who they are (I had completely forgotten about this talk until he reminded me of it yesterday). He said, she told us that we each needed to “check ourselves” because the “issues” we are having with homosexuals said more about “us” than it did about them. Over the years he said that he and his brother have discussed that conversation and it helped them to mature and “evolve” on homosexuality. (Yes TOD all the men in my family were homophobic at one point in life).

They let our elders know that all man was created in God’s likeness. That we should have a right to be who we are with equal rights under the law. They said that marriage is a legal act recognized by this country and that religion is a a personal experience of your faith. They said we have to stop mixing the two. If the church doesn’t want to recognize the marriage fine. That’s there prerogative but they shouldn’t have the right for religious reasons to tell people that they cannot legally marry the person they love.

The Aunt who loss her son to AIDS many years ago said, Well! Welcome to the twenty first century. Then the topic changed to my cousins red-velvet cake that is to die for. :)

In other words, some may moan a little about SSM (because of their traditional religious values) but the reality is that it will have little to zero effect come this November…We Got This!!!!

Fantastic story and one that will undoubtedly play out in many families over the next several months. Wont’ always end up the same, but the bottome line is that it won’t have as negative an impact as some have feared and, just as important, it will allow some people to open their minds and their hearts.

Donna–What a wonderful story. First congratulations on your daughter-in-law’s degree and a big bow to you for all you were willing to take on this weekend. Mr. B is a wonderful example of how intelligent people across the country are evolving away from their prejudices on gay marriage and opening their eyes to injustice. This is a great sign of progress. And finally, a huge hug to you for raising such an intelligent, compassionate and articulate son. Tears would have been streaming down my eyes if I had heard my own son communicate something I taught him that effectively. You are a terrific mother, Donna, as well as a kind and loving relative to all of your extended family.

Yesterday in Orlando Sentinel—–black pastors do not agree with PBO’s endorsement of SSM but most will continue to support him anyway and they believe the same about their congregations. It is a hard change for many, but there is progress:

Good thing you had braced yourself DD4O, so you were able to thoroughly enjoy the wonder and relief of hearing your family seeing the World as it is becoming! It seems that must have felt a bit like riding on PBO’s coattails, to witness change on so many levels, up close and personal! Thanks for sharing with us, you have made my day! :lol:

So the Karl Rove tactic is to take a person’s strength and make it their greatest liability, well then if that’s his tactic it seems that Team Obama has taken that tactic and used it on Romney in spades. Romney wants to go around the country and brag about his business acumen, well then Team Obama is going to highlight Romney’s business acumen, with Bain Capital being the staring attraction. Team Obama is going to shove Bain Capital down Romney’s throat.

n 2005, Quadrangle made payments to private placement agent Hank Morris to help Quadrangle raise money for its second buyout fund. Morris had come highly recommended to Rattner from U.S. Senator Charles Schumer. Hank Morris was also the chief political advisor to Alan Hevesi, the trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund (CRF). Morris told Rattner he could increase the size of the CRF investment in Quadrangle’s second buyout fund. Rattner then agreed that Quadrangle would pay Morris 1.1% of any investments greater than $25 million from the CRF.

In 2009, Quadrangle and a dozen other investment firms, including the much larger Carlyle Group, were investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for the payments to Morris. The SEC viewed the payments as “kickbacks” in order to manage money for the New York State Common Retirement Fund since Morris was also a consultant to New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who controlled the Retirement Fund. Quadrangle paid $7 million in April 2010 to settle the SEC investigation. In November, Rattner personally settled for $6.2 million without admitting or denying any wrongdoing

Rattner sounds like a skunk, and who cares what he said? He isn’t working for the Obama campaign. One question, did this Rattner guy say that Mitt Romney taking credit for the auto industry recovery was wrong?

Rep. James Lankford (R-OK) told ThinkProgress last week that he believes someone should be able to be fired for his or her sexual orientation.
In a conversation on Capitol Hill, Lankford expressed his strong belief that being gay is a choice, and that LGBT workers should not be protected from workplace discrimination because it’s something they can change. “You don’t walk up to someone on the street and look at them and say, ‘gay or straight?’” Lankford said:

I am willing to bet that Lankford is the kind who want to be able to fire someone if they are black. That is such non-sense, if the gay person come to work, ain’t causing trouble, and is doing his or her job like everyone else, why fire them? I wonder should we kick gays out of the military too?

This guy is my rep! The absolute worst. The only thing he did before getting elected was run a Baptist camp in the Arbuckle mountains, about 2 hours south of OKC. He is pathetic, but he will be re-elected. This district is so far right, it’s unbelievable. The only election contest in this district is the Republican primary. All of our reps have been awful since we’ve lived here. Our previous rep was Mary Fallin, the present governor, who is as a lady at church described her yesterday, an empty dress.
I would say Lankford is one big pile of hate and bigotry. Since this picture was taken he has a new more stylish haircut…but he is the same person inside. His ignorance knows no limit.

Mitt Romney says he wants to talk about the economy in this presidential campaign, including his call to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s $2 billion trading loss in risky transactions isn’t the sort of conversation he had in mind.
So far, presumptive Republican nominee Romney has said little about the transaction that is roiling Wall Street and Washington, prompting an inquiry by the Federal Reserve, a call for a congressional investigation and a demand by Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic Senate candidate in Massachusetts, that JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon resign from the board of the New York Federal Reserve.

“Anytime you have a development that suggests businesses take unnecessary and unwise risks, you give ammunition to Democrats and cause problems for the Republican narrative,” said Stu Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. “I think Romney will have to deal with it.”
Romney, co-founder of private-equity firm Bain Capital LLC, has spotlighted his vow to repeal the Dodd-Frank law that aims to strengthen financial regulations, calling it one of several overly burdensome laws backed by President Barack Obama that costs jobs. Romney hasn’t directly commented on the JP Morgan losses since Dimon disclosed them on May 10; he ignored a reporter’s shouted question about the matter at a May 11 rally in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Almost all of msnbc is fighting back against Obama’s great new ad. In addition to mornin’ joke, I just caught a minute of Dan Balz on the Toad show saying Willard can convincingly hit back on these ads because they are “condemning success”. Heads were nodding around the table. Click. Success??? Success for whom?? Success for the very few at the expense of the many. None of them seem to understand this concept or are pretending not to.

dotster3……Can’t you have success without stomping on the hard workers who put their blood, sweat and tears in that job? Chuckie Todd has been taken over by the anti-Obama spirit. They are great ads, if they weren’t they wouldn’t be discussing them. So Todd is full of alot of B.S.

That is the most contorted tripe I’ve ever heard! How can anyone with a heart and a pulse watch AND listen to that ad and take away any sense of “success”????? Absolutely absurd and so out of touch, it’s unfathomable. They are all making fools of themselves.

Some more details:
Live Webcast
Please Note: Live streaming of events begins 30 minutes prior to the actual event start time.
The keynote address will also be streamed live at whitehouse.gov and broadcast live on CSPAN (check your local cable listings).

Polls in Wisconsin are not looking good for Tom Barrett the Democrat opposing Walker. The non stop carpet bombing from Koch money is having its effect. I’m going to send a few bucks: http://www.barrettforwisconsin.com/splash

I doubt that Koch ads have more effect than what is happening to people in real life. Losing a job or having your rights as workers taken away is more powerful than any ads.These polls are probably being paid for by the Koch bros.

Getting a six-figure salary to travel all over the US while tweeting a bunch of random trivia that folks already know or don’t care to know. Everyone would love to have a nice job like this. Yet Knoller seems distinctly unhappy.

Oh great. Starting already. NATO demonstrators protesting outside Obama HQ in Chgo. Some barged in past security guards and ran up the escalators and were yelling stuff from the balconies to the lobby below. A group organized by the “Catholic Workers Movement”. Not looking forward to all this. Saw an earlier Trib report that many businesses are telling their employees to work from home while summit is in progress to protect their safety.

The Department of Transportation has a message for California: Use your federal high-speed rail money or lose it.

And if California can’t decide fast enough, any other state interested in claiming those funds might be out of luck — since the money will no longer be available after Sept. 30, according to a DOT official on Friday.

Mitt Romney’s campaign is looking to fill its vice presidential slot with a “boring white guy,” according to one Republican who is privy to some details of the campaign’s decision.
Politico reports that Romney is trying his hardest to pick “a deliberate anti-Palin,” and apparently that means he cannot pick a person of color or a woman:
One Republican official familiar with the campaign’s thinking said it will be designed to produce a pick who is safe and, by design, unexciting – a deliberate anti-Palin. The prized pick, said this official: an “incredibly boring white guy.”

And Mitt Romney wants to repeal Dodd-Frank. And his party blocked the appointment of a Director to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau for so long that President Obama had to make a recess appointment.

Good morning everyone! It IS a beautiful day here in Dallas/Fort Worth. AND I get to see FL Michelle at a reception in Dallas this afternoon. I am sooooo excited! I’ve seen PBO a couple of times at events but never had the chance to see our FL and have wanted to do this for the longest time. I’m 58 years old but feel like a kid heading for the candy store:-) Will update the event later today. Hope everyone has a great day and week. Love the campaign’s new website going after Robney economics.

Congrats on seeing FLOTUS FoxFire. It will be a beautiful experience because she is a beautiful person. Her spirit is so loving and genuine. You will be in awe when you see how stunning she is in person.

The reception is at the Hilton at 635 and the Dallas Tollway. I’m from MN originally, moved here 13 years ago. Ive never adjusted to how red this state is so can’t imagine living some place even redder:-)